


Brave New World

by andrastesgrace (RoxieFlash), gallifreyslostson



Series: Family Assembled [13]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 06:26:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5406437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoxieFlash/pseuds/andrastesgrace, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyslostson/pseuds/gallifreyslostson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even as Peggy says her final goodbyes to Steve, opportunity finds her in the form of a pinstriped alien with very definite ideas about happy endings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: COUPLE OF THINGS. This is the start of a whole big verse series we have worked out, but it’s not a crossover in the strictest sense. More like coexisting things that occasionally intersect and swap characters as we deem fit. Secondly, word of warning, things are VERY STRESSFUL in the first couple stories of this series (read: a character catches a slight case of..death), but everything is not what it seems. Promise.

**_May 11, 1946_ **

The Doctor glanced at the readout before nodding slightly and making his way toward the doors, pausing only to grab his coat and shrug into it before stepping outside.  He’d been shooting for the first anniversary celebration of V-E Day, but this was close enough.  However, as his eyes adjusted to bright sunlight, he realized that he’d overshot by a few miles as well as a few days; his surroundings were very...Brooklyn Bridge-y.  Decidedly not Times Square.

He shot a look back at his ship.  “Honestly, why do I even try to calibrate you?”

He sighed, burying his hands in his pockets as he strolled away from the unassuming blue box.  Might as well make the most of it.  Better than simply wandering the halls looking for a girl who wasn’t ever there.  Who wouldn’t ever be there.

Best not.

Still, what wasn’t to enjoy about a pleasant May evening in Brooklyn?  Lovely weather, minimal air pollution, smiling faces, women spilling blood into the river--

Hold on.

He stopped, then backtracked a few steps and frowned, watching the woman at the railing.  A tear tracked down her cheek as she let the vial fall into the water behind the blood it had held.

“Goodbye, my darling.”

Her face turned more toward him as she lifted her head, looking at the water, and the Doctor narrowed his eyes.  The British accent had been startling enough, but something about the features...he suddenly had the fierce desire to know whether Rose ever had any family emmigrate to America.  Not that anyone would probably know.

Not that there was anyone left to ask, come to that.

“Interesting way to say goodbye,” he said in a conversational tone, sauntering toward the woman.  “Mind you, I’m not really one to talk.  You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve done to say goodbye.”

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” she asked with a deep frown.

“Shouldn’t think so,” he replied amiably, holding his hand out to her.  “I’m the Doctor.”

The woman stared at his hand for a second before looking away at the water again.  “In my experience, people who introduce themselves like that aren’t people I want to know.”

“Is that right?” he asked, lowering his hand to the railing.  He tilted his head, watching her closely; something was off.  He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something wasn’t quite right with this human, even apart from the blood spilling.  “And why’s that?”

“They tend to think they’re better than everyone else.”

“What if they’re right?”

She gave him a level look.  “They’re not.”

Time.  Time was odd with her.  Something was in flux, something that shouldn’t be, something bigger than an ordinary human, but something she was completely unaware of.  Fascinating…

“So who was that?” he asked, leaning on the railing and nodding at the water.  She turned back to the water, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge him.  “Friend?  ...Lover?  ...Enemy you’ve been draining of blood for an untold amount of time and are disposing of by the vial in various bodies of water?”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Yes, it is, but it did get you to talk to me again,” he pointed out with a grin, and she responded with an irritated cluck of her tongue.  “Sooo…?”

The woman glanced at him before looking down again.  “He was a hero.  Someone who didn’t think he was better than anyone, even though--”

He watched as she stopped short, swallowing hard.  “Even though he was,” he finished softly, and she nodded a little.  “I had a friend like that.  Better than anyone, her, even though she didn’t think so.  Better than me.”

A lot of friends like that, if he were honest.  But there was only one loss right now that felt like one of his hearts had been torn out and stolen away, locked in another universe he’d never see again.

He glanced over to find the woman studying him, eyes narrowed, and cleared his throat.  “Still, better to have loved and lost and all that.”

“Did you love her?” she asked curiously, and it was his turn to stare at the water, not really capable of an answer that wouldn’t bring him more pain.  He could still see the hologram of her, choking and crying and telling him--but he couldn’t.  Lord of all time...master of none of it.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said finally.  “Not everyone gets a happy ending.”

“No,” she responded flatly.  “I suppose not.”

They stared at the water in silence together for a moment, before the Doctor took a deep breath and pushed away from the railing.

“Anyway, I’ll leave you to it,” he told her.  “I shouldn’t have intruded anyway.  Have a good evening.” 

He started away, but paused when he heard her voice again behind him, swiveling back to her.  “Sorry?”

“Peggy Carter,” she said again, and he smiled a little.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Peggy Carter.  And I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Likewise,” she replied, glancing at the water again briefly before turning her gaze back to his.  “Good luck to you, Doctor.”

“And you.”

It amazed him, it really did, how loss could somehow bring people together.  Kindred misery, sort of a thing.  Still...Peggy Carter.  He hummed thoughtfully as he sidled back into the TARDIS, no longer in a New York state of mind.  He threw his coat over a coral strut and made his way to the console, steering the ship back into the Vortex.

He stared at the screen for a moment after the ship was in stasis, tapping his thumb against his lips, before hitting a few keys and starting some research.  It didn’t take long before he had amassed more information than he’d thought possible, and several pieces of a puzzle much larger than he’d realized.

Peggy Carter, indeed.

oOoOo

**_May 15, 1946_ **

Edwin’s head snapped up at the scream, the vase he was watering immediately forgotten.  It fell to the floor with the sort of tragic crash that only expensive crystal is capable of, but he paid it no mind as he sprinted down the hall.

He knew that scream.  He’d heard it used in fear, in anger, in passion.  What he hadn’t ever heard was the sickening way it cut off in the middle.

“Where is she?” he demanded, skidding into one of Howard’s labs.  The tray Anna had been holding, as well as the sandwiches it had been laden with, had fallen to the floor, completely unheeded.  Some tick in his head was already tutting at the mess, but it was the scorch mark that held the majority of his attention.  “Mr Stark...Howard, what have you done?”

He lifted his eyes to his employer to see Howard’s face pale with shock, shaking his head gently.  “I dunno what happened, Jarvis.  It wasn’t even supposed to go off.  She startled me, and... I don't know.”

“Howard, where is Anna?” he asked again, his control slipping a little as he stepped toward Howard and the massive controls his hands still hovered over.  “Where is my wife?”

“Jarvis, I’m sorry,” Howard said, and Edwin could feel his body start trembling at the exertion it took not to strangle him.

“What are you apologizing for?” Edwin asked, his voice quiet.  If he didn’t speak softly, he’d start shouting, and if he started shouting, he might never stop.  But he needed Howard to say it, even while some mental voice was chittering to him that if he didn’t say it it wasn’t real.

“I dunno what happened,” Howard repeated, stepping back from the controls.

“You’re a genius,” Edwin said evenly.  “Figure it out.”

“I don’t...I can’t…”  His eyes flitted around the room uncertainly as his hand drove through his hair, landing briefly on the scorch mark before looking away hurriedly.  “Jarvis, I’m so sorry.”

“She’s dead.”  Edwin gave his employer a cold stare when Howard lifted his eyes.  “She’s dead, and you killed her.”

“Jarvis, it was an accident--”

“You’ve had any number of accidents over the years, Mr Stark,” Edwin said, fingering his cuffs as he straightened his spine.  “So many that I’ve lost count.  And I have been there to help you clean it up, no matter the cost.  Even when you manipulated and abused your own friend, Miss Carter, I stood by you.  However, it would appear that the idiotic, completely haphazard death of my _wife_ by your own selfish thoughtlessness is evidently my limit!”

He wasn’t entirely sure when he’d started shouting, or when he’d stepped closer, or when, exactly, they reached the wall that Howard was apparently now backed against while Edwin loomed over him.  He stepped back, tugging at his waistcoat.

“I regret to inform you, Mr Stark, that I can no longer continue in your employ,” he managed.

“Jarvis--”

“Furthermore, I would like it noted that I would very much appreciate it if you would go to hell and take all your doomsday devices with you, you malignant, myopic, maladjusted--”

“ _Jarvis_ \--”

Whatever control Edwin still had at that point snapped with the full force of a right hook to Howard’s face.  When that didn’t turn out to expel all his pent up energy, he followed it up with another punch, this time holding Howard in place with a hand fisted in his shirt.  He could have gone for a third, but saw the blood flowing from Howard’s nose and mouth, and suddenly felt sick.  Not because of the blood, he’d never been squeamish, but just because of the sheer, incomprehensible madness of it all.  In the space of minutes he’d gone from a married man to a widower, from an employee of one of the most brilliant men in the world to a thug.

He let go of Howard, hands shaking, and fought back the bile in his throat as Howard wiped his mouth.

“I deserved that,” he rasped.

“You deserve quite a lot more than that,” Edwin said.  “But I’ll trust someone else to give it to you.  Goodbye, Mr Stark.”

Howard didn’t try to stop him again.  Not even when Edwin drove away in one of his cars.

It was nearly ten miles before Edwin finally pulled over and stumbled out of the car to be sick on the side of the road, tears streaming down his face.

oOoOo

**_May 22nd, 1946_ **

"But why on earth didn't you _say_ something?" Peggy demanded.

They were in their usual diner, although Peggy had obliterated the pretense of separate booths when Jarvis quietly informed her that he was no longer working for Howard following the death of his wife.  Even now, she was having a hard time grasping the whole notion; Jarvis was defined by two things, his job and his wife, and without either, the man in front of her didn't seem quite whole.

"What could either of us have said?" he asked now.  "Nothing of any real assistance.  What use would a missing persons report be when I already know what happened?  And what criminal charges could be brought or confessed to without the proof of a body?  No, let any gossips say what they will, I'd rather keep to myself.”

Peggy was quiet a moment.  She could easily understand the feeling of loss, as well as the suddenness.  Steve had been a soldier, death was always a possibility, but not like that.

“She wasn’t even supposed to be there, you know,” Jarvis went on after a pause, his eyes on his tea.  “But her card game had been cancelled and she wanted to spend the day with me, something I’ve...never been one to complain about.  I should have been the one going down to the lab.”

“Don’t do that to yourself,” she said gently, reaching across the table to cover one of his hands with hers, and he raised his eyes to her.  “You can’t.  It’s not your fault.”  He nodded slightly, but she wasn’t entirely sure her words had gotten through to him when he looked down again.  “What about Howard?  Have you spoken to him since that day?”

“I have not,” he said, his voice harder than she was used to.  “And I think it’s fairly safe to say that I never will again.”

Peggy shook her head sadly.  There would be no point in arguing with him; he had every right to be angry, and inflict far more damage on Howard than his absence.  But it still made her heart ache for both of them.

 _Idiot_ , she thought viciously.  It was so like Howard to make a complete catastrophe of things, but this was a new level of personal, irreparable damage.  She wasn’t entirely sure how comfortable she was talking to him at this point herself, if she were to be completely honest.  Thankfully, as yet, he hadn’t made any move to speak to her either.  So long as things stayed this way, she’d likely impose on his hospitality, if only for Angie’s sake.  The girl wouldn’t stay in the house without her, and Peggy couldn’t bring herself to force her out of something she knew to be safe and stable, which was far more than she could say for the owner.

“What about services?” she asked after a moment.  “Will you have a funeral?”

“To what end?” he asked, looking up at her again.  “Her parents are gone, whatever family she has left is still in Europe, and the few acquaintances she had are under the impression that she must have run off because I’m unfit as a husband for a variety of reasons.”  He paused, tilting his head a little.  “You never did get a chance to meet her, did you?”

“No,” she said softly.  “For what it’s worth, Mr. Jarvis, I’m so sorry.”  He nodded again, adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.  “What will you do now?”

“I’m not entirely certain,” he admitted, eyes travelling over the diner restlessly.  “We had a fairly substantial savings, but beyond that...I must admit, I’m at a bit of a loss.”

“If there’s _anything_ I can do,” Peggy told him, “please don’t ever hesitate to ask.”

“Thank you, Miss Carter,” he said, the thinnest semblance of a smile coming to his lips before he drew a long breath.  “But at the moment, I think your time would be best spent returning to the office.  I’m sure there’s some villain just waiting for your particular brand of justice to be meted out on him.”

“Yes, likely the despairing lack of coffee,” she said, rolling her eyes and standing with him.  “One day, Mr. Jarvis, the men of the SSR will learn to make their own coffee, I swear it.”

“One day, Miss Carter,” he murmured, “I have no doubt they’ll be making yours.”

The corners of her mouth tipped up at the gentle reassurance, even in such a dark hour for him.  The modern man could learn a thing or two from him...but until then, she would be grateful for his friendship.

As they stepped out into the sunlight, she turned to say goodbye to Jarvis, only to be cut off by someone exuberantly calling her name.  She turned with a frown to see a man grinning and waving as he made his way toward them, and she narrowed her eyes.  It took less than a second to place him--the wild hair alone would make him stand out, but coupled with the tight suit and ludicrously long jacket, he was unmistakable.

“Hello,” he said happily when he stepped closer.

“Doctor,” she said, forcing a friendly--if brittle--smile.  “How...surprising to see you again.”

“Welll, I tend to pop up from time to time,” he said, shrugging.  “Old habits and all that--Hello, I’m the Doctor,” he added to Jarvis, holding out a hand.

“Edwin Jarvis,” Jarvis said, shaking his hand uncertainly and cutting a look at Peggy.  “Pleasure.”

“Oh, pleasure is all mine,” the Doctor said, tilting his head curiously.  “Fascinating.  I thought it was just her, but no...it’s you too.  And you really have no idea.”

“I beg your pardon?” Peggy asked, completely perplexed.  She’d been suspicious of the man’s sanity back on the bridge, but now was almost certain he was completely mad.  “Listen Doctor, it’s lovely to see you again, but--”

“Thing is,” he interrupted, shoving his hands in his pockets, “that sometimes happy endings are just a little...late.”

“I’m sorry?”

_“You’re late.”_

_“Couldn’t call my ride.”_

Peggy blinked at the sting the memory brought to her eyes and drew a breath.  “Doctor, is there somewhere we could possibly take you?  Someone to call?”

“Shouldn’t think so,” he said amiably.  “Not anymore.  No, actually, I was rather hoping that I could help you.”

“I assure you, I’m not in need of any assistance,” she said firmly, and turned to Jarvis.  “Mr. Jarvis, it was a pleasure dining with you--”

“Yeah, maybe not,” the Doctor said, and she turned to him again in amazement at his complete disregard for her effort to leave.  “I mean, I’m pretty useless, knocking around space without any real purpose.  But I’ll tell you what, I’ve become incredibly good at finding lost things, no matter how far away they’ve managed to get.”

He shrugged, winked, and turned on his heel, walking away without a backward glance.

“What on earth was that about?” Jarvis asked.

“I’ve no idea,” she replied, watching as the Doctor ducked down an alley.  After a moment, she shook her head and made to follow him.

“Miss Carter, you can’t be serious,” Jarvis said, catching her arm.  “You can’t just follow strange men into alleys!”

“Mr. Jarvis, I’m fairly certain that’s how we met,” she pointed out, giving his hand a pointed look until he released her.  “And honestly, it’s broad daylight, what could possibly happen?”

“Any number of things,” he said, glancing around.  “You could trip...fall...skin a knee...fall prey to this generation’s Jack the Ripper and be found stabbed and gutted--”

“Honestly, Mr Jarvis!  He’s even skinnier than you, I’m fairly certain I could handle myself against him.”

Jarvis gave her a long look, jaw tight.  “Be that as it may, Miss Carter, I have very recently lost someone who meant the world to me.  I would not wish to lose someone else I hold in such high regard to something as mundane as street crime statistics.”

Peggy sputtered, not able to come up with a suitable argument, then sighed when she realized there wasn’t one.  “Oh, very well, come on.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Well, I’m still going,” she said over her shoulder, already moving.  “So if you’re so concerned for my well-being, you’ll just have to come with me.”

She didn’t check to see if he followed, but did smile a little when she heard his footsteps hurrying after her.  He nearly ran into her when she turned into the alley and stopped dead at the sight of the Doctor leaning nonchalantly against a tall, blue box.

“When did we get public call boxes in New York?” Jarvis asked in confusion.

“We didn’t,” Peggy said firmly, eyeing the Doctor.  “What’s it doing here?”

“Come and see,” he said, turning and slipping through the door.  Peggy narrowed her eyes and took a step forward.

“Oh, really, Miss Carter, I must protest!”

“Protest all you like,” she said distractedly, glancing back, but stopped when she saw his distressed look.  “Mr. Jarvis, it’s entirely possible that he’s simply a mentally ill transient that...came across this box.  Likely he’s seeing a whole other world inside there.  In any case, we can’t just leave him, or the box.  What if a child decides to play in it and gets stuck?”

“And what if he’s already enticed other people into that box of his, and has their corpses littering the inside?”

Peggy stared at him a moment.  “Morbidity doesn’t suit you, Mr. Jarvis.”

“My apologies, Miss Carter,” he said, straightening and tugging at his jacket nervously.

“And anyway,” she went on.  “Even if he does have designs to harm me, I’m an agent of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, and as such--”  She pulled her pistol out of her bag, checking that it was loaded.  “--I came prepared.”

“Right.”

“Are you two just going to dawdle out there all day?” the Doctor asked, poking his head out.  He frowned with a disgusted sound when he caught sight of Peggy’s gun, then looked between them with a sigh.  “Well, if that makes you feel safer.”

His head disappeared again, and Peggy heard a sound inside like metal.  A sound that...echoed.  She glanced back at Jarvis, and saw him staring at the box with a startled expression.  He’d heard it too, then.  She nodded, more for herself than the former butler, and made her way toward the box.  When she finally looked inside, her jaw dropped, and the hand holding her pistol fell to her side.

The Doctor was wandering around a central console fitted with a number of switches and levers, the center of which consisted of a long, glowing column reaching higher than her eyes could see to a cathedral like ceiling.  As vast as the room was, there were hallways jutting off of it, making the impossible careen off into the land of the thoroughly unimaginable.

“Oh good lord,” Jarvis said behind her.  “Don’t ever let Mr. Stark see this.”

“That would be Howard, right?” the Doctor asked, turning to them.  “No, I think not.  I’m rather prone to accidents enough on my own.”

“But...how?” Peggy asked, looking around as she moved further into the room.  “How does the outside fit around it?”

“It’s dimensionally transcendental,” he explained.  “Bit of technology from my home planet.”

“Your home planet,” she repeated flatly, eyes snapping back to him.

“Mhm.  Not a local boy, me.”

“You and Orson Welles would get along,” Jarvis commented, running his hand over one of the struts rising from the floor.

“We did,” the Doctor said.  “Nice chap.  Saved the world from a Martian invasion.”

“That was just a radio show,” Peggy said.

“Nah, that was just a cover,” he said with a sniff.  “Scared off the real invaders.”

Peggy looked past him at Jarvis, who simply shrugged, looking tired.  “So...this is your...spaceship.”

“Bit more than that,” the Doctor replied, glancing around.

“And it looks like a public call box.”

“That’s to blend in.”

“In a state where there are no public call boxes.”

“The circuit got stuck.”  He gave an affronted huff when she raised her eyebrows.  “Oi!  You are standing inside the last ship in the universe capable of it’s kind of travel through time and space, and you’re going to complain about _cosmetics_?”

“Time?” Jarvis asked, and Peggy went still.  “You can travel in _time_ , as well as space?”

The Doctor kept his eyes on Peggy.  “I can, yeah.  But I can’t change everything.  Some things that happen...stay happened.  They must.”

“According to who?” she asked.

“Me.”  He spun around again, flipping a few switches and turning a few dials as Jarvis and Peggy exchanged a look.  “Still, that’s not to say there’s nothing of interest to you out there.”

“So all that talk about happy endings,” she said as the middle column started to make a groaning sound, “that was just rubbish, then?  Some sort of cruel joke?”

“Oh, no, Miss Carter,” he said, pausing his motions with a hand on a lever, “I’m just here to give you a ride.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part gets more than a little NSFW. FYI.

**_May 22nd, 2012_ **

_To this day, the disappearance of Peggy Carter remains a mystery.  A witness saw her dining with a former employee of Howard Stark, but various spokesmen from Stark Industries have maintained that they have no knowledge of the whereabouts of either Miss Carter or Edwin Jarvis.  While rumors fly, without any concrete evidence or reliable leads for the authorities to follow, the case will likely remain unsolved._

_New York Times, February 7, 1952_

Steve let his eyes travel up the column again to the picture at the top.  It was an old one, the same one he still carried in his compass.  His thumb brushed over the image, and he swallowed hard as the door slid open.  He glanced up briefly to see Tony enter, then turned his attention to the next page, a heavily redacted copy of Peggy’s MIA report.

“Hey, Spy Kid,” he heard Tony say, somewhere in Natasha’s vicinity.  “What’s with the Eeyore impression?”

“Oh, you know,” she drawled.  “The usual.”

“Scrapbook of sadness?”  Tony sniffed.  “Seriously, man, you need a better hobby.  Or at least one that’s less likely to cause self-harm.”

“Don’t remember asking for your input, Stark,” he said mildly without looking up.

“Yeah, memory must be getting hazy at your age,” Tony replied.

“Leave him alone,” Bruce cut in, and Tony snorted.  Steve looked up again to see him throw himself onto a couch and turn on the television, flipping through the ludicrous amount of channels at breakneck speed.

He wasn’t even sure what they were all doing there.  When Tony started rebuilding the tower, he’d sent them all keys.  He’d left the sign as it was, only the “A” from his name remaining, and said it was there if they needed.  Steve had gotten his key last week.  Since then, the others had quietly drifted in as well.  There wasn’t really any huge catastrophe to thwart in the wake of what the media was calling The Battle of New York, even SHIELD was in a lull.  They were all just sort of...there.  Well, except Thor.  He had his own mess to clean up.

Steve looked around, at Clint and Nat at the table doing...something weapons related and talking quietly, at Banner puttering around at a desk with a lot of electronic doohickeys Steve wasn’t even going to try to understand, at Nick slouched down in a recliner, eyes closed.  It was a strange group, but he’d tended to run in strange crowds.  It was vaguely reminiscent of the motley crew that had made up his little unit in the war, and he found it oddly comforting.

Probably as comfortable as things were going to get for him, out of place as he was.  Out of place, and out of time.  He looked down again the photo of Peggy, sighing a little.

 _Sorry, Peg_.

As lazy as the scene was, it took less than a second for everyone to spring into action at the first mechanical groaning sound.  By the time the weird blue box had finished materializing in the room, it was completely surrounded with weapons drawn on it.  One thing the Avengers didn’t like, he decided, was having their day off ruined; Clint had an arrow notched at an impressive speed, even for him, and one of Tony’s gauntlets had flown to his arm.  Nat stood next him, on the far side from Steve’s position, two pistols at the ready in steady arms, while Steve thumbed the safety off on his own sidearm.  What Bruce planned to do with the empty beaker he holding menacingly, Steve wasn't sure.  Only Nick hadn’t moved; the only indication that he’d noticed the disturbance at all was the fact that his visible eye was open.  Steve gave him a confused look before the sound of a door squeaking open from the opposite side of the box pulled his attention back to it.  He saw Tony and Nat’s eyes widen when they saw whatever came out.

“Please,” a voice said, and Steve’s blood ran cold.  “Lower your weapons.  I can assure you, we mean you no harm.”

It couldn’t be.  It was impossible.  There was no way on God’s green earth that _that_ voice should be here, now.  But the way Nat and Tony both immediately lowered their arms, Nat’s safety clicking and Tony’s hand in his gauntlet relaxing, said otherwise.

“That was rather effective,” another voice said.

“Bizarrely so.”

“Well, you _are_ rather persuasive, Miss Carter.”

“Not usually _that_ persuasive.  My job would be a lot simpler if I were.”

Steve blinked, swallowing at what felt like cotton in his throat as Nat leaned toward Tony and asked, “Why’s he sound like your robot?”

“My apologies for...intruding,” the woman’s voice went on, and Steve finally managed to lower his arms, re-engaging the safety on his gun reflexively.

“Peggy?”

There was silence for a moment, then a figure stepped around the box, trailing a hand along the side as if to steady itself.  Steve could hear his blood pumping in his ears as he took in the pale but still recognizable face of a woman that should be a ghost.

“Steve?”  Her voice was shook as she took another step toward him.  “But...but I don’t understand.  He said...and...and I heard the plane go down.”

“Dr. Erskine’s serum made me a little harder to kill than that,” he said, lacking anything else as his mind locked up completely.  She’d gotten very close, distractingly so, but he was terrified to touch her in case she disappeared and it was all a dream.  It wouldn’t be the first time...although he’d never had one that had a big blue box in it.  “Besides, couldn’t leave my best girl hanging, could I?”

She smiled a little, even as a sob broke from her lips, and he reached for her automatically, cupping her cheek.  Her eyes fluttered closed as she leaned into his touch, and his thumb moved gently over her cheekbone as he stared, marveling at the feel of her.

“I don’t understand,” he said after a moment.  “How...how did you get here?  What _happened_ to you?”

“Time travel,” Nick said from his chair, and Steve turned his head.  “It happens.  Always wondered if we’d hear from her again, especially after we dug you out.”

“What--time travel?”  Steve looked back to see Peggy’s eyes open and watching him.  “But--no, that’s only in stories.”

“As far as you know,” Nick retorted.  “Until a few weeks ago, so was Thor.”

“Thor?” Peggy asked.

“Don’t ask,” Steve warned her, shaking his head.  “But you _disappeared_ , Peg.  There were news articles and police reports--Peggy--”

“Hold on,” she said, and he let his hand fall as she straightened.  “Time travel.  What year is it then?”

“Two thousand twelve,” Nick informed her, lacing his fingers together over his chest.

“Two thousa--nevermind how I got here, how the hell did _you_ end up here?” she demanded, pinning Steve with a look.

“That’s...a little complicated,” he said, shifting awkwardly.

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Nick said, and Steve shot him an annoyed look.

“If I could interject,” another voice said, and Steve looked past Peggy to the two other men now standing beside the box, one looking awkward and the other leaning casually on the side.  Steve could guess which one had spoken.  “May the 22nd, 1946, Peggy Carter, war hero, vanished without a trace.  Her last known whereabouts were at a diner in the company of one Edwin Jarvis,” the man continued, inclining his head toward his companion, “previously employed by Howard Stark and, as revealed by said former employer, a recent widower.  Mr Jarvis also went missing.  Without any concrete evidence to substantiate any claims of sightings, the case went cold, although I believe that SHIELD still considers it open.  A present from the founders.  Hello, by the way, I’m the Doctor.”

“This better just be a social call,” Nick grumbled, and they turned to him again.  “I’ve got some friends in the UK that say things tend to get complicated around you.”

“Oh...wellll, that’s...um...what...what friends, exactly?”

Steve tuned them out as he looked back down at Peggy, still not totally able to wrap his mind around the fact that she was here.  If the way her eyes were roaming over his face was any indication, she wasn’t faring much better.

“So...1946,” he said slowly.  “It’s been a year for you?”

She gave him a small nod.  “A very long one.”

“And your Edwin Jarvis,” he went on, looking past her again at the other man.  “Did he...help with that?”

“Mr. Jarvis?” She gave him a confused look, then glanced over her shoulder.  Jarvis started in surprise, looking behind him for an instant as if he’d find someone else Steve could be talking about before turning back and shaking his sleeves out nervously.

“Miss Carter is a...very dear _friend_.”

“Friend?” Steve repeated, raising his eyebrows as he looked back down at Peggy, who was shaking her head at him and appeared to be fighting a smile.  “That’s good.  Friends are...good.”

“So are you gonna kiss her or what?” Nat piped up, and he coughed awkwardly and took a small step back.

“What?  No, I--I don’t--really?”

“I don’t know about any of you,” Tony cut in.  “But I could use a drink.  Drinks, anyone?  Everyone should drink.”

Somehow, they all ended up scattered over the couches.  Steve made sure Peggy stayed close to him, and felt a shock run up his arm when she reached for his hand.  The last time he saw her kept running through his head, the way she’d kissed him, the way he’d very much like to reenact that if he got a chance.  Nick pulled himself from his nap to explain how they’d found Steve a month ago, and why he didn’t look like he’d aged a day.  The Doctor explained how he’d stumbled on the connection between the woman he met on the bridge and the modern day Captain America, although he was vague on his motivations for looking her up at all.

Through the entire conversation, Steve kept stealing looks at her, drinking her in.  When he’d first found out that Peggy had disappeared a year after he went under, he’d driven himself crazy trying to find out what happened to her, somehow convinced that he’d parse out some clue that sixty-five years of law enforcement and trained agents had missed.  When Nick came to him with a new mission, he’d almost been happy for a distraction from the obsession with it, and since the battle, had sunk into a depression fueled by the knowledge that he wasn’t going to find the answers he wanted.  Peggy wasn’t ever going to be found if she didn’t want to be, and had probably died somewhere years before.  Just one more loss he had to accept.

Except...not so much.

He didn’t say much through the introductions, only smirking a little at the shocked look Peggy gave him at Tony’s name.  Instead, he felt himself spiraling into more and more uncertainty as questions came unbidden to his mind.  What if she’d only said what she did because she knew he was going to die?  What if she’d only kissed him because it was the thing people do when someone goes off on a stupid mission on their own?  What if she only cared about him because of what he’d done, because he was Captain America?  What if, when it came down to it, the girl he’d fallen for when she’d punched a cadet in the mouth, had never really cared about _him_ at all?

The was some part of him, some little voice in his head, telling him that ideas like that were nuts, reminding him of all the times they’d talked and shared and flirted like hell, all the times where they knew what they were and where they were headed without having to say it.  Electric moments in muddy camps and frozen forests and bombed out pubs, memories that had been crystallized and haunting him.  But that little voice wasn’t nearly enough to stop the tide at the moment, a tsunami of doubt that he would never quite live up to the image of himself in the minds of others.

“The choice is still yours,” the Doctor was saying when Steve finally tuned back into the conversation, hours later.  “Like I said, all I’m doing is giving you the opportunity.  What you do with it is up to you.”

“We can still go back?” Jarvis asked, frowning.  “But the news reports and things--”

“Just one possibility,” the Doctor said, waving a hand.  “There’s thousands.”

Peggy cast a quick, uncertain glance at Steve before returning her eyes to the Doctor.  Steve looked unhappily down at his hand, wondering when she’d removed hers.

“If it’s all the same,” she said slowly.  “Do you think we could possibly have a day to think about it?”

“Yeah, sure, course you can,” the Doctor said, nodding quickly.  “Besides, I think Misters Banner and Stark would be disappointed if I cut and run, by the way they’re eyeing my ship.”

Steve smiled at the way both geniuses immediately looked away from the box they had been watching hungrily.  Tony tried to look nonchalant as he stood, holding a tumbler of scotch loosely in his hand, and wandered closer to it.

“Yeah, sure, think about it,” he said, reaching out a hand to lean against the box.  “We’ve got plenty of room, and Pepper won’t be back for days still, so she can’t yell at me.  Steve, you...know the way around.”

Steve glanced at Peggy and Jarvis as Tony turned his attention more deliberately to the ship.  “Uh...yeah, sure.  Let’s find you some rooms.”

He found a room for Jarvis first, who assured Peggy he’d be fine on his own when she asked.  The feeling that there was something else between them wormed into Steve’s mind again, but he pushed it away.  Jarvis had apparently been married until recently, and even if there was...something else, it wasn’t any of his business, she was free to do as she wished, he’d been dead as far as she knew and they’d never even had one date.  It was _one kiss_.  And a whole lot of feelings leading up to it.

He shook himself as he opened another bedroom door, convinced now that he was going to lose his mind if he didn’t get away from her.  Far cry from where he’d been a few hours ago, but he was too turned around now to try to examine it.

“Could...would you like to...come in for a bit?” she asked, her eyes wide and looking more unsure than he ever remembered seeing before today.

“Sure, yeah, I could do that,” he found himself saying, the words tumbling from his mouth before he could stop them.  So much for getting away.  “There’s a restroom through that door, and a closet over here...not that you’re going to need that.  Oh, um.  Did you want me to ask Natasha if she’s got something you can sleep in?”

“I’ll manage,” she assured him, setting her pocketbook down on the high dresser.  “I’m just going to--”

“Oh, yeah sure,” he said when she gestured at the bathroom.  She nodded a little, and he buried his hands in his pocket as she scurried through the door.

As soon as she was out of sight, he let out a slow breath.  The thought crossed his mind that he could just leave now while she was in there, but he dismissed it quickly.  She’d traveled sixty-five years, the least he could do was wait until she came out to say goodnight.

Why had she, though?  She’d looked just as surprised as him.  Why would she even want to be here?

Because he was Captain America.  Instilling loyalty and insanity across the globe.

He shook his head, pacing around the room, running his hands across the top of the furniture  with no reason other than to have something to do with his hands.  He muttered a curse when his idle hands knocked her pocketbook off the dresser, sending the thing to the ground and it’s contents scattering.

“Everything alright?” her voice called through the door.

“Yeah, fine!” he shouted back, stooping to gather up her meager belongings and stuff them back into the clutch.  He paused, blinking in confusion, when he caught sight of a black and white photo of himself, before the serum.  He placed her pocketbook back on the dresser without looking away from the photo.  There’d really been nothing to him, his dog tags were practically a shield themselves, skinny as his chest was.  The sides and corners of the photo were worn, not aggressively, but in a way that indicated that it had been handled a lot over time.

Of all the things she could have kept, all the publicity shots and newspaper photos, the damn trading cards, why on earth would she keep this?  Unless--

“Steve?”

He looked up at the sound of her voice.  “Your, um.  Your pocketbook fell.”

“Oh, well--”  Whatever she was going to say stopped abruptly when he held up the photo.  She swallowed, then shrugged a little.  “I took it from your file, after--Everyone remembered Captain America,” she said, tears coming to her eyes.  “I...I just wanted to remember Steve.”

Something abruptly twisted in Steve’s gut. There it was--that feeling, the one that had begun seventy years ago in an army camp, leeching back into his bones--that she didn’t look at him and see a failure, and she didn’t look at him and see a hero--but that she looked at him, saw him as he was, and what he was, she wanted. He had _never_ understood that, not really, but as he looked at her, he could see it in her eyes, in the way her mouth trembled when she looked at him.

The photo fell from his hands as he closed the gap between them and reached for her, dipping his head to press his lips to hers.  She made a sound suspiciously like a sob, but when he started to pull away, her arms wound around his neck, holding him in place.  He let his arms slide further around her waist, pulling her against him as he angled his head.  When he tentatively opened his mouth, pulling at her bottom lip, one of her hands went to his hair, her fingernails scratching at his scalp while her mouth opened invitingly.  He let his tongue run over her bottom lip, tasting her, before sliding it along hers and groaning at the sensation of it.  She let out a little moan in turn, arching closer, and he felt lightheaded, either from lack of oxygen or the blood rushing to his pants.  He pulled away after a moment with another groan, breathing hard as he looked over her flushed cheeks and swollen lips.

“Peg,” he breathed, then swallowed hard.  “I should go.  Before this gets out of hand.”

“Don’t you dare,” she said, and he was pretty sure she’d be pointing a stern finger at him if her arms weren’t still both around his neck.  “Don’t go.  Please.  Please don’t go.  Oh, my darling--”

Her voice broke, and the sight of tears threatening again as her eyes skittered over his face was his undoing.  He lowered his head again without another thought for leaving, kissing her greedily as he leaned down to hook his arm behind her knees and lift her into his arms to carry her across the room to the bed.

They tugged at each other’s clothes, lips trailing over each new area of skin revealed.  He found a particular spot at the join of her shoulder and neck that made her moan and clutch at him; when her smaller hands brushed over the ridge of his hips they jumped to meet her.  He’d been told a lot of things about sex--the dangers of it from nuns, the pleasures of it from Bucky, the awkwardness of it from soldiers coming back from red light districts--but this was something else.  Every kiss and touch and soft sound had him craving more, and the whole universe seemed to narrow in scope to this one room, this one bed, the two of them.  When he finally pressed himself into her, he had to stop, resting his forehead on hers as he attempted to scrape together some sort of control.  No super serum that could ever be devised could possibly strengthen him enough to be prepared for the sensation of Peggy Carter surrounding him, with her legs around his hips and her amazing breasts pressed to his chest.

“I love you,” he murmured breathlessly.

“Oh my darling,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to his cheek, his jaw, his mouth.  “I’ve loved you so long.”

He moved slowly at first, their hips seeking a comfortable rhythm, but he soon found himself lost in her.  His lips moved restlessly as he thrust into her, kissing and sucking and biting wherever he landed, and he moaned when she did the same.  A coil of tension in his abdomen tightened until he was dizzy, grinding against her erratically, but it wasn’t until she arched back with a shout of his name and tightened around him that it snapped.  His vision went white as waves of pleasure coursed through him, and he clutched her tight to him as he rode them all down back to earth.

He looked at her in awe as he finally regained some sort of awareness, for everything she was and everything she’d given him and for coming back to him when he thought he’d lost her forever.  He leaned down and kissed her gently before rolling to the side, not certain anymore he’d be able to keep from collapsing on her.  She sat up, reaching for the blankets that had become...somewhat disheveled, and pulled them up before laying back down.  He slid an arm around her as she nestled into his side, and he closed his eyes against the sting of tears as she kissed his shoulder tenderly.

“Promise me this isn’t a dream,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“If it is, I don’t ever want to wake up,” she responded softly, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Me neither, Peg,” he murmured, nuzzling her hair.  “Me neither.”

oOoOo

**_May 23, 2012_ **

After six hours, fifteen minutes, and no sleep, Edwin got out of bed.

He didn’t know where he was heading, or what he intended to do when he got there--all he really knew was that the quiet, and the dark, where he might imagine for a moment that the slip of a sheet was the slide of her skin, would drive him mad if he laid there another second.

It was, without much purpose, that he wandered through several hallways before he encountered another human being. The building was huge and labyrinthine, and not getting lost was a distraction in and of itself. He passed row upon row of doors identical to the one he’d slept behind, and behind one of which, undoubtedly, was Miss Carter. For a brief moment he considered finding her, but then rethought of all the reasons she might not appreciate his company at present.  
Captain Rogers. Captain Rogers, and the year of our Lord two thousand and twelve, and towers, gods, monsters, and _time travel_ , and after all that, where was Anna? Not here, with him. Not waking sleepily on his shoulder as the sun rose, or greeting him with a smile at breakfast. No, Anna was not here.

Instead, he’d traveled seventy years to another time, to another New York, and to _another bloody Stark._

After a good ten minutes of walking, Edwin found himself, suddenly, with no more hallway. Instead, the hallway opened up into the central living area they’d all occupied the night before, which contained seating, several tables scattered with various scientific ephemera, and an entryway he hadn’t noticed before. It looked to lead into a large kitchen area, and outside of it stood Agents Romanoff and Barton.

He’d met them briefly the night before, though their focus hadn’t been on him, but on Miss Carter. They were standing outside the entryway as he approached, looking in, while the sounds of someone preparing breakfast within could be heard.

“Is he...whistling?” said Agent Romanoff.

“Some sort of big band something?” said Agent Barton. “I’m more interested in what’s happening to those eggs.”

In the kitchen, just beyond the doorway, was Captain Rogers. He was moving around the kitchen like a man changed, whistling and attending to breakfast like he hadn’t a care in the world.

“In the Mood, actually,” said Edwin. “Glenn Miller. I take it this isn’t usual behavior for Captain Rogers?”

“He’s usually more of a cornflakes and man-tears kind of guy,” Agent Romanoff said without turning.

Edwin frowned at Agent Romanoff’s back. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what she meant. Men had tears, did they not? He’d certainly experienced enough of them himself. He’d almost opened his mouth--to say what, he wasn’t sure--and but at that moment there was the sound of slight footsteps behind him. Captain Rogers looked up from his good work and beamed, and suddenly, walking past him, was Miss Carter.

Not as he’d ever seen her, though. In their entire association, she had always been the picture of composure, never a wrinkle or a hair out of place. She wasn’t rumpled, exactly--never that--but there was an easiness in the way she moved, a lack of tension where before it had been there in spades.  When she approached, Captain Rogers lifted his arm, and she tucked herself underneath it, before raising on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek.

He knew, right then--had known all along really, but it was plain, now--that she wasn’t returning to 1946.

Agent Barton turned to Agent Romanoff and mock-whispered. “I think we found the source of the whistling.”

“Laugh it up, you two,” said Captain Rogers. He turned and brushed his mouth over Miss Carter’s, and she smiled--a brilliant, beaming smile that contained a softness he’d never seen in her before. It reminded him of another smile--Anna’s smile, the one that greeted him every day when he came home.

The slow burn behind his eyes returned, and he felt very suddenly like he needed to be elsewhere. He might’ve backed out, unnoticed--the two Agents were bickering playfully with Captain Rogers, and with every word he felt more the intruder--except that Miss Carter, after a moment, spoke.

“Good morning, Mister Jarvis.”

He nodded. “Miss Carter.  I trust you slept well?”

He glanced rather pointedly at Captain Rogers, and his lips twitched despite himself as she flushed.

“I...yes, quite well, Mister Jarvis, thank you for asking.”

Agent Romanoff glanced backwards for the first time that morning, snorting softly as Agent Barton shook his head. “Not bad, Jeeves.  So, Cap, are you making food for everyone, or just you and your...lady friend?”  
Captain Rogers raised an eyebrow.  “You can have some if you never refer to her as my lady friend again.”

“Oh, it’s too early for male ego,” Miss Carter groaned, moving away from Captain Rogers toward the coffee.

“Oh, I like her,” Agent Romanoff said.  “Can we keep her?”

“I rather think you will,” Edwin murmured sadly under his breath.

oOoOo

That, thought the Doctor, was the last time a Stark was allowed onboard his TARDIS. There ought to be a rule for things like that. He had rules for wandering off. There were also rules for when disgusting things like pears were allowed and which rooms were good for kissing (those were _never_ and _everywhere but the control room because you’ll distract me into a supernova, Rose Tyler,_ respectively) and rules for who did the talking (he did) and rules for crossing your own timeline (cheap tricks only).

He was just adding _Tony Stark_ to the mental list of things not allowed on his TARDIS,  right between _pears_ and _Daleks,_ when he rounded a corner, and bumped, quite literally, into Edwin Jarvis.  An armful of parts scattered onto the floor.

“Mr. Jarvis, hello! How are you finding 2012? Hell of a year. Gangnam Style, royal pregnancy, the Olympics in old London town--although,” he paused, bending over to pick up a particularly battered-looking chronotic coil. “Fifty Shades of Grey--eugh. Still. Nice place to settle in- what do you say?”

The other man looked at him with a raised eyebrow as he handed over the gravitic compulsion module the Doctor had worked out of a bit of wreckage from a Chitauri warship.

 “It suits Miss Carter.”

The Doctor, his armload of treasure in hand, continued along the corridor. “I’m not talking about Miss Carter, Mr. Jarvis--“ he turned around, and blinked. The other man was still standing where he’d been when they bumped into one another. Didn’t he know how this _worked_?

“Aren’t you coming?”

Mr. Jarvis looked slightly flustered as the Doctor jerked his head in the direction of his now-parked-very-far-away-from-Tony-Stark TARDIS, and continued walking.

“Why not?” he heard Jarvis mumble behind him after a few steps.  “It’s certainly not as if it could get much worse.”

Oh, there was something about these two. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, something just under the radar that he was missing. Even now, as he walked next to Mr. Jarvis, the air around them felt wibbly, as though something... _hinged_ on them.

It wasn’t a terribly unfamiliar feeling. There were people he’d met, bouncing around time and space, who would make one or two terribly important decisions. But this didn’t feel like a branch on a tree, this felt like the _root._ The beginning.  
Edwin Jarvis. Edwin Jarvis. He couldn’t recall anyone particularly noteworthy with the name, though that didn’t mean much. The Doctor tried thinking back on everything he learned about the two of them in his research, but came up with nothing, except that he’d been a butler in Howard Stark’s employ (poor fellow) and--oh. Right. _Recent widower._

The TARDIS--which had been parked in the middle of the Avengers’ lounging area, had been moved to one of the unused sleeping quarters. As he threw the door open to reveal the beautiful blue box, the Doctor turned.

“Here, hold these for a tic, I’ve got to -” he piled the parts into Mr. Jarvis’ arms. The other man blinked.  After a few minutes of rifling, the Doctor came away from his pockets with the key. “There we are!  As I was saying, Mr. Jarvis,” the Doctor continued, making his way to the console. “I wasn’t asking about Miss Carter--I was asking about you.”

The other man ignored him. “It’s purpler than I remember,” he said instead. “And is that a bicycle pump?

“Helmic regulator. Now let me just -”

The Doctor piled the parts from Jarvis’ arms into the jump seat. and turned around to set to work. He wasn’t quite sure _what_ Stark had done that was causing the purple glow, or all the viewscreens to display Black Sabbath lyrics, but the old girl was due for a checkup anyway.

He took out the sonic screwdriver and set to replacing the chronotic coil. After a few moments, the coil clicked into place, and the lights flickered--and instead of a purple glow, the room was flooded with flickering red and gold.

“Well,” clucked the Doctor. “I don’t know what your friend Stark did to my ship, but -”

“Mr. Stark is _not_ my friend.”

“Well, he named his AI after you, you must mean something to one another,” the Doctor made a slight adjustment to the gravitic compulsion module while Mr. Jarvis frowned at him. The lighting, thankfully, evened out. The other man’s face did not. “Ingenious system--you should meet it, if you get the chance. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was my work.”

“I rather think my life has become strange enough without including a robotic doppleganger,” Jarvis said dryly.

“Yes, I suppose it has. Your life was strange before this, wasn’t it?  Can’t have been easy, working for Mr. Stark. Howard, I mean--Stark the original, if you will.”  
Jarvis’ jaw tightened.

“Ohhh, is that it? That’s what happened, wasn’t it--how Anna died? It was something Howard did.”

A week ago, the Doctor reminded himself. Anna Jarvis had been gone for--what, seven days? Eight? He’d still been floating around looking for stars to burn, in Jarvis’ position.

“She never asked for this,” Jarvis bit out. “She was innocent. I brought her here for a new life, a _safe_ life--Mr. Stark promised me a safe life for her, but now--she probably would have been better off if I’d never met her in that bloody shop.”

“I can understand that feeling,” the Doctor muttered, thinking back to the dark basement, the living plastic, and the word “run”.

“How could you _possibly_ assume to understand _anything_ about what I’m feeling?” Jarvis burst out suddenly, and the Doctor’s brows shot up in surprise.  “I met the love of my life in the most dangerous place she could possibly have been in, I risked _everything_ to bring her out of it, to make a life for us.  And for what?  For some stupid _mistake_ to ruin it?  What could you know of that?”

“Man of peace, fighting a war? Escaping death by a hair, only to meet a beautiful shop girl and a man whose sexual preference is ‘yes’? You and I have more in common than you’d think.”  The Doctor rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Two things, Mr. Jarvis. One--you can go home, walk ‘round where she used to be, sure you can. You absolutely can--I’ll take you home this instant, if you like.”

“And the second thing?”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

oOoOo

“Peggy? You alright?”

Peggy looked up at Steve’s quiet question and gave him a tight smile.  “Fine. Couldn’t be happier.”

“You know, for someone so talented at espionage, you’re really an awful liar,” he replied, leaning back and crossing his arms with an expectant look.

“So now you’re just going to expect to know all my secrets, Captain Rogers?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“That would probably take decades,” he snorted.  “I just want to know what’s keeping you from being as ridiculously happy as I am that you’re here.”

Peggy studied him a moment, then sighed.  She ran a hand through her hair as she glanced around the common room, full of things she couldn’t recognize and looking out on a city that wasn’t home, regardless of geographic location.  But even all that could be dealt with, adjusted to, if it weren’t for the worry about her friends hanging over her head.

“There’s just...so many variables,” she said after a moment.  “Most of them people that could get hurt terribly.  I have friends, Steve, people that counted on me, that still do.”

“Mr. Jarvis,” Steve guessed.

“He’s one of them, yes,” she admitted.  “He’s lost a great deal recently, and I worry about him very much.  I don’t suppose you’d consider--”  Before she’d even finished speaking, Steve was shrugging and shaking his head a little.  “No, I thought not.”

“Peg...that time went on without me,” he explained softly.  “They need me here.”

 _So do I_ , she thought, but only nodded a little, looking down.  Steve reached for the hand she still had on the table, and she watched his thumb move over her knuckles comfortingly.  She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed simple, small gestures like that from him.

“How’s Howard?” he asked after a moment.

“Oh, you know, the usual,” she said with a chuckle.  “Inventing cocktails that compel people to murder each other and dodging treason charges, nearly getting himself killed because he took the wrong woman home.”

Steve grinned.  “Sounds like Howard.”

“I don’t think he ever stopped looking for you,” she told him.  “Not while I was there.  And now, he’s alone, with the weight of his...thoughtless sins.”

“I doubt Howard was ever alone for very long,” Steve pointed out dryly.

“I wouldn’t worry about him,” a voice said, and Peggy looked up to see Tony sauntering into the room.  “One thing my dad is good at is always coming out on top.  After all, he made me.”

“Suppose that’s true enough,” Peggy reasoned with a careful tone as Tony threw himself onto a sofa and started leafing through a magazine.  “Still, it couldn’t have been easy. And...there was this girl. A friend. I’m not sure what will happen to her without me there.”

“Angie Martinelli.”

Peggy spun around to stare at Tony.  “How on earth did you know that?”

“She was alright,” Tony told her, not looking up from the centerfold he was turning the magazine to gaze at lecherously.  Peggy clicked her tongue irritably; definitely a Stark.  “I mean, she died about twenty years ago, now.  Car wreck.  But up til then, yeah, she was okay. Well, unless you count being married to my dad.”  He finally looked up then, shrugging at Peggy’s shocked face.  “My dad talked about Jarvis and wonder boy over there, usually when he was drunk...but it was my mom who talked about you.”

“Angie’s your mother?” Peggy asked, a smile coming to her face as the pieces came together in her mind.  It would be so easy, Angie still being at the townhouse and Howard needing his very particular brand of comfort, then being surprised at her spitfire personality.  Of course he’d adore her.

“Yeah, I was sort of a late afternoon of life surprise, you could say,” Tony said mildly, returning to his magazine.

“Well, that’s two down,” Steve said as the door slid open to reveal the Doctor and Mister Jarvis.  “One to go.”

“Hey, Doc,” Tony said.  “When are you gonna give me another crack at that box of yours?”

“Oh, how about the second Tuesday after never?” the Doctor asked, burying his hands in his pockets as he strolled further into the room.  “Does that sound alright to you?”

“You know, for an alien, you’re kind of a buzzkill.”

“For a human, you’re kind of...oh, nevermind, all humans are like that.”

“Mister Jarvis,” Peggy said, ignoring the geniuses bickering as she smiled at her friend.  “I was wondering where you got off to.”

“I just...needed some time alone,” he said, watching as Steve stood and dropped a kiss to Peggy’s hair before moving off to play referee between the Doctor and Tony.  “Which is not, as it turns out, particularly easy to come by in this building.”  He paused a moment, considering her.  “You’re staying.”

It wasn’t a question.  “I...Mister Jarvis, I’m concerned about you,” she said instead of replying directly, and he rolled his eyes as he huffed at her.  “I’m serious!  I wish...Mister Jarvis, would you consider staying?”

“Miss Carter, there’s nothing for me here.”

“All due respect, Mister Jarvis, but there’s nothing for you there, either,” she pointed out, and his expression hardened.  Well, she’d come this far, and certainly hadn’t made a habit of backing down from men trying to stonewall her.  “You said yourself that you were at a loss for what to do.  Perhaps this is exactly what you needed, an opportunity for a fresh start.  Otherwise, it’s just an exercise in self-flagellation that you’ve done nothing to deserve, regardless of what you think.”

“And you think this would be better?” he demanded.  “Playing third wheel to you and Captain Rogers, watching you two rekindle what was supposed to be a doomed romance?”

“Better than willingly setting yourself up for a life of lonely misery,” she countered.

“It’s _always_ going to be lonely!” he shouted, and Peggy stared at him, taken aback.  Mister Jarvis had never raised his voice to her for any reason other than to be heard above explosions or gunfire, a fact that seemed to occur to him almost immediately as well.  He looked down hurriedly, hands clenching nervously.  “My apologies, Miss Carter--”

“No, it’s quite alright,” she cut in; he had more than enough reasons to lash out, after all.  “It may be that you’ll always have a sense of loneliness without Anna, and I would be a hypocrite to deny the real pain that comes with that.  But being lonely doesn’t mean you have to be alone.  As you told me, no man or woman is capable of carrying the entire world on their shoulders.”

He sniffed, blinking rapidly.  “Of all the times for you to listen to me.”

Peggy stood, reaching out to touch his arm.  “Isolating yourself won’t make anything better.  I tried.  And I was miserable.  And I can’t bear to watch you do the same.”

“What on earth would I do here?” he asked, glancing around with a helpless shrug.

“You could be Jarvis,” Tony suggested, and they both jumped, having all but forgotten the other occupants in the room, all of whom now appeared to be watching them carefully.

“I’m...not sure I understand what you mean,” Mister Jarvis said, frowning at Tony.

“Well, I’ve already got a JARVIS,” the other man explained.  “He's probably better for me--he’s got all my music.  But maybe you can be sort of the team’s Jarvis...Jarvis.  Since _apparently_ none of them are going anywhere.”

“You told us we could stay!” Steve chimed in testily.

“I said it was _here_ ,” Tony argued.  “Not to show up with kitchen sinks and...pet birds.”

“I heard that,” Clint said as he and Natasha entered from another door.

“Glad to hear it, buddy,” Tony replied easily.  “Since I know those hearing aids of yours like to go on the fritz around me.”

“Imagine that.”

“So what’s the deal?” Natasha asked, lounging across an easy chair with her legs dangling over one arm.  “Are we keeping Jeeves and Agent Wonder Woman?”

“Ah, see Wonder Woman is an entirely other--”  Natasha gave the Doctor a look that had him nodding and clearing his throat.  “Right.  Carry on.”

“I really hope you do,” Bruce said as he came up the stairs.  “Stay, that is.”

“How many entrances has this room got?” Mister Jarvis whispered to Peggy.

“Too many,” she replied in an annoyed tone.

“I just mean, if you leave, Steve--sorry, Captain Rogers--is going to be even more depressed and short-tempered.”

“We may have to put him down,” Tony said with a mock pout.  “Just call him Ol’ Yeller.”  Peggy blinked at him, and he rolled his eyes as he stood..  “Seriously, you time capsules need to watch a movie or twelve.  Honestly, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do when all my amazing references and comedic timing fall on deaf ears.”

“You’d have to have a sense of comedic timing for that to become a problem,” Clint put in.

“That hurts,” Tony told him, spinning around to him.  “I’m wounded.”

“Anyway, I think one seriously depressed, neurotic, emotional time-bomb is enough for this group,” Bruce went on.  “And I’ve kind of got that covered in...a big way.”

“See, that’s comedy,” Natasha said, pointing to Bruce.  “You get it?  Because he gets big?”

“Yeah, I got it, thanks,” Tony said with a withering glance at her.

Peggy was fighting a smile as she glanced at Steve, who only shook his head and shrugged.  Even Mister Jarvis looked mildly bemused by the group’s antics, which was a step up from pale grief.

“So,” the Doctor said finally.  “What’ll it be?  Up to you.  Return to whence you came...or a fresh start in a brave new world?”

oOoOo

The Doctor piloted his ship back into the time vortex, not even mildly surprised that he’d left the tower without any passengers.  He could sense it, the moment the decision was made for both of them, and a particular set of possible futures snapped into place.  Oh, it was all still murky, still fragile, with a billion billion variables that could shift it in one direction or another, but still--it was a start.

A happy ending with a new beginning.  The Doctor allowed himself a small smile, then set the TARDIS for a random course.  Perhaps it was time he moved forward as well.


End file.
